VOLUME 3

AN ANSWERE VNTO SIR THOMAS MORES DIALOGE

LOCATION
KEY Commentary Side Textual Bibliographic Scriptural

the wordes of the righteous Deut. xvij. When couetousenesse findeth vauntage in servinge falshed / it riseth vpp in to an obstinat malise agenst the trouth and seketh all meanes to resiste it and to quench it. As Balam the false prophete / though he wiste that god loued Israhel & had blessed them and promised them greate thinges / and that he wold fulfyll his promises / yet for couetousenesse and desyre of honoure / he fell in to soch malice agenst the trueth of god / that he sought how to resiste it and to curse the people. Which when god wold not let him doo / he turned him selfe a nother waye and gaue pestilent counsell / to make the people synne agenst god wherbye the wrath of god felle vppon them / and many thousandes perished. Notwithstondinge gods trueth abode fast and was fullfilled in the reste. And Balam as he was the cause that many perished / so escaped he not him selfe. No moare did any that maliciously resisted the open trueth agenst his awne conscience / sence the world beganne / that euer I red. For it is sinne agenst the holy gost / which Christ saith shall neyther be forgeuen here nor in the worlde to come / which texte maye this wise be vnderstonde that as that sinne shalbe punished with euerlastinge damnacion in the life to come: even so shall it not escape vengeaunce here. As thou seist in Iudas / in Pharao / in Balam and in all other tirantes which agenst their consciences resisted the open trueth of god.

22/15–17 Giftes . . . righteous. Deut. 16.19. The opening verses of Tyndale's Deut. 17 (22/17; Mombert 577; TOT 280) equal the Vulgate's and KJV's Deut. 16.18–22. (The Pentateuch in TOT lacks page divisions into ABC etc.)

DEUTERONOMY: 16.19 (TOT, Ch. 17): 22/15–17, 146/14–16

17 [Hand] [1531]

20 Balam [1531]

maliciously] 1573, maliciousy [1531]

The sinne agenst the holye gost [1531]

22/32–23/1 sinne . . . come. Cf. Matt. 12.31–32.

MATTHEW: 12.31–32: 22/32–23/1

72/2–3 the deuell / the world and the flesh. Patristic and medieval exegetes paired the three temptations of Christ (bread into stones, kingdoms of the earth, pinnacle of the Temple in Luke 4 and Paradise Regained) with concupiscientia carnis, et concupiscientia oculorum, et superbia vitae of the Vulgate (1 John 2.16). Cf. Gregory's homily on Matt. 4.1–11 against gluttony, avarice and vainglory (PL 76.1136); the three winds of the World, the Flesh, and the Fiend which buffet the Tree of Charity in Piers Plowman (Passus XVI, line 48). See Patrick Cullen, Infernal Triad: The Flesh, the World, and the Devil in Spenser and Milton (Princeton UP, 1974). In his 1516 NT, Erasmus renders he epithumia tes sarkos, kai he epithumia ton ophthalmon, kai he alazoneia tou biou as concupiscentia carnis . . ., & concupiscentia oculorum, fastus facultatum [pride of resources]. Following Erasmus' Latin, Tyndale translates the Greek as "the lust of the flesshe, the lust of the eyes, and the pryde of goodes" (Wallis 488/23–24; TNT 339C), cf. 193/15–16n.

[Hand] [1531]

23/4–5 Iudas . . . Pharao . . . Balam. Cf. CWM 8/1.221/33–34. For Judas and Balaam, cf. 14/14–18n; for Pharaoh, cf. Exod. 9–14.

So now the cause why oure prelates thus rage / and that moueth them to call master More to helpe / is not that they finde iust causes in the translacion / but because they haue loste their iugglynge and fayned termes / wherwith Peter

2 PETER: 2.3: 23/10–11,27/20–21, 41/5,41/27–28

ij. Pet. ij. [1531]